Chechen warlord murdered in Dubai

Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, is facing fresh international
scrutiny after a powerful Chechen warlord who fell out with the Kremlin was
assassinated in Dubai.

By Richard Spencer in Dubai and Adrian Blomfield in Moscow

5:20PM BST 30 Mar 2009

The murder of Sulim Yamadayev could trigger renewed violence in Chechnya and will cause alarm outside Russia after a series of similar assassinations in Istanbul and Vienna.

Mr Yamadayev, the leading rival of Chechnya's Kremlin-backed president, Ramzan Kadyrov, was shot dead in the car park of a housing development in Dubai where he had been living under a false name since December.

While there were contradictory details about the killing, experts on Chechnya alleged that the sophistication and planning involved in the attack suggested the involvement of Russia's FSB intelligence service, once headed by Mr Putin.

Coming only six months after Mr Yamadayev's brother, Ruslan, was shot dead outside the British embassy in central Moscow, the murder is another sign that Chechnya's increasingly bloody gangland war is being fought beyond the Russian republic's borders.

According to police officials in Dubai, a lone gunman killed Mr Yamadayev as he walked from his apartment block to its underground car park.

"The murder of the Chechen seems to be an assassination," said a statement from General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, the head of Dubai's police. "It seems the 36-year-old victim had been under surveillance for some time."

Until his removal in a palace putsch last year, Mr Yamadayev was Chechnya's second most powerful warlord after Mr Kadyrov.

Both men were former rebels who fought the Russian government in the first of Chechnya's two rebellions between 1994 and 1996. They defected to the Kremlin's side in the second war, which began in 1999, and their powerful clans formed the bedrock of an uncertain pro-Russia government, with Mr Kadyrov at its helm.

As head of the Eastern battalion and de-facto leader of Chechnya's second biggest city of Gudermes, Mr Yamadayev was never happy in his junior role.

He told the Daily Telegraph on several occasions that he had been angered by the manner in which the Kremlin sidelined him.

Even though Mr Kadyrov has largely succeeded, through a mixture of terror and Kremlin money, in pacifying Chechnya, the death of his rival could detabilise the republic.

"Yamadayev may have been greatly weakened, but at the same time his clan is very large," said Tanya Lokshina, a Chechnya specialist at Human Rights Watch. "There will be a lot of frustration. Kadyrov may appear to have complete control of Chechnya but that does not mean the situation is totally stable."

The killing could also prompt world leaders to take Mr Putin to task over the various Chechnya-related assassinations around the world.

"The latest events in Dubai will have indirect consequences for Putin's reputation as a world leader," said Alexander Konovalov, a leading Chechnya analyst.

In the past six months alone, three of Mr Kadyrov's opponents have been shot dead in separate incidents in Istanbul. A fourth was killed in Vienna after telling the New York Times that Mr Kadyrov had ordered executions and personally tortured his opponents.

The murder of Anna Politkovskaya, the outspoken Russian journalist, has also been linked to the Chechen president. Mr Kadyrov has denied all the allegations.

Questions are now being asked in Moscow about whether the murders are happening solely on orders from within Chechnya, or whether they have the FSB's blessing.

"I am fairly convinced that there must be some level of cooperation between the Chechen authorities and the FSB with so many killings happening in so many parts of the world," said one observer of Chechnya.